“The event focused on the role that structured markets can play in improving farmer incomes, how to improve market access for farmers, and how best to aggregate farmers so they can get the maximum possible return and delivery to and from markets,” said Angela Mumbi, PCD’s Kenya Programme Manager.

She continued, “Not only did the five organisations outline the lessons they have learnt, but farmers, farmer organisations and other country organisations explained their experiences in connecting to markets. These lessons put forward will now be taken on-board to further improve farmer livelihoods in the best way possible.”

Together the organisations, supported and convened by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), make up a Structured Demand Learning Group (SDLG) for Kenya, which sees each organisation contribute their individual experiences and comparative advantages to work in effective partnership together to improve farmers' lives.

Products Launched at the Event

During the event the SDLG presented case studies on their programmes as well as a group draft learning report, which coordinated by PCD, collectively documents the five organisations’ experiences. This learning report will now incorporate input made by participants both during and after the event and will be widely disseminated in coming months so lessons can be shared among the agricultural and nutrition community.

Learning From Other Countries

To promote learning across other countries SDLGs Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali and Nigeria also hosted an afternoon session so that perspectives, reflections, opportunities and challenges in other contexts could be overseen. The session responded to three key themes:

• What changes could be made going forward to improve farmer access to markets?

Next steps

The SDLG will now include all feedback made during and following the event into the learning report, which once finalized will be featured on www.hgsf-global.org. The group will now focus on how farmers can have more access to finance which will be led by AGRA.